About Time I Finished This: Exit Plan (Avernum: Escape From the Pit pt 33)

This is pretty much the point the entire game has been building up to. Sure we got to slay a big scary demon, and hunting down Lagram was fun. We made the underworld a much better place but as I’ve been saying the whole time we don’t want to be underground, we want out. So let’s leave already!

Meet the altered giant, we’ll be seeing a lot of them up here. There not that big a deal, They’re tough, have a ranged attack and are apparently immune to a lot of magical stuff, but aren’t too big a threat offensively. As long as they don’t get past my front line I can fight them without any spellcasting.And here we are on the-Nevermind.The fight itself isn’t too bad, but now we’re stuck in here.Meet the Final Gauntlet’s other major gimmick. Buttons and hidden passages. You’ll be doing a lot of pushing buttons to open up hidden rooms that contain the wheel you need to turn to open up the next little area and so on.

Just wait until we reach the end.This here is the moment we’ve been preparing for.Without the full password, we’d be stuck here. Sadly, I don’t recall hearing about a ritual of safety. But that’s OK. Some fighting just means more xp, right?Also worth noting: the gauntlet lies to drop enemies in behind you.Crossing the bridge is safe, going back however, is going to be a problem. you can’t use the orb in towns and dungeons so unless we find another way back, we’re stuck here.This area si a bit of a problem. It’s full of altered giants who will happily throw attacks at you while you can’t easily get to them. Though it’s worth noting that for melee attacks? The ledges blocks movement, but not melee attacks, so if they stand on the edge you can still stand “next” to them to hit them.There’s a lot of barriers in that room. fortunately, dispel barrier simply dispels everything in range. allowing you to reach the wheel in the middle with one cast. Sadly, you can’t turn said wheel or the other one nearby.The answer is this pool hidden off to the side, which grants enlightenment.Winding around, we get to the most annoying part of the dungeon.Surprise! It’s dark again!There’s not much to show here, but I will say the final area is ANNOYING. moving in darkness is difficult, and you need to navigate a maze of passages to find a button or wheel that opens a little room with another button or wheel and so on and so on, witch each one spawning a wave of monsters you need to fight in the darkness until it’s finally over.Eventually we face the Deathtouch Horror, who’s kind of the final boss for this area. He’s a spellcaster who comes with two altered giants.His gimmick is he puts a death mark on someone when he gets to low health, which will kill then in about 16 turns. There’s no way to get rid of the mark besides killing the horror. fortunately for me, he was near dead by the time he marked anyone, and when he dies the altered giants just disappear, so if they aren’t doing much it can pay to ignore them in favor of rushing down the horror.Finally! Excuse the screenshot looking weird, everything went back to normal as soon as I closed the text box.more importantly, that looks like grass? Could it be!It is!That’s major quest number two, but we’re still not quite done yet.A teleport near the exit lets you go back. Now that you’ve seen the surface you can tell Erika and Rogow about it.

It’s worth noting here that if you want to, you can walk back to the exit and do the ending again. The bridge that collapses will be back for you to cross again when you return. The mist won’t return so you won’t have to fumble through the dark, but you will need to hit all those switches and wheels and fight the monsters they spawn again. including the Deathtouch Horror.

On the other hand, the Deathtocuh horror drops a sword worth 3000 gold and a return to life scroll, with each death, so you can farm those off him if you feel like it.

I should also note that if you go back and choose to leave, that actually ends the game, instead of going back underground, the ending notes you’ll have to start your life over with the empire hunting you, then dumps you to the title screen. So you can take that as a final ending if you want.

But we don’t want to simply leave, we want revenge. Next time, let’s look into how to go about doing that.